Research Themes

DanStem hosts 12 research groups and four affiliated research groups within the Program for Translational Hematology (PTH). We grouped the research programs into five groups: three of them are fundamental research themes and the other two are translational themes.

While basic research spans a continuum of scientific areas from early embryonic development to disease in later life, the research groups work synergistically in these five research themes.

Research Groups by their primary theme:

All groups are also involved secondarily in other research themes

Theme I: Pluripotent Stem Cells and Differentiation

The Brickman Group: focuses on understanding the transcriptional basis of PSC potency and early differentiation. The group uses early ESC differentiation as a model to understand basic mechanisms of gene regulation and seeks to understand lineage specification in the endoderm.

The Ferretti Group: generates in vivo and in vitro models of the mesoderm to understand mesoderm differentiation. The group also focuses on regulatory gene networks downstream of PBX1, a key mesoderm regulatory factor.

The Kirkeby Group: studies how the diversity of cell types and progenitors is specified in the human neural tube (the ectoderm germ layer). The group uses PSCs as a model for human neural development and exploits microfluidics to generate signaling gradients to fine- tune cell-type specification.

Theme II: Organogenesis

The Grapin-Botton Group: investigates the impact of cell and organ architecture on cellular fate choices and how single cells collaborate to generate an organ. These studies are intended to provide insight into human afflictions that impair pancreas development.

The Serup Group: studies the integration of Notch signaling and lineage-specific transcription factors in the regulation of cell fate. the architecture of regulatory gene networks controlled by Notch signaling, and the biological significance of oscillatory gene expression of Notch pathway components and target genes.

The Ober Group: studies the formation of a functional liver in the embryo under normal conditions and after injury. The group aims to determine the self-organizing principles coordinating cell behavior and interactions of differentiating progenitors that drive tissue morphogenesis, including the addition of new cells.

The Sedzinski Group: investigates the general principles underlying epithelial homeostasis. The group is trying to determine both the mechanics and molecular regulation of epithelial cell renewal from stem cells, and hopes to provide new insights into the treatment of epithelial pathologies associated with defective tissue homeostasis.

The Semb Group: studies the linking of organ morphogenesis to cell fate decisions, and vice versa, on a cellular and molecular level.

The Program aims to improve the immediate and long-term outcome for blood cancer patients by coordinating and strengthening ongoing blood cancer research into a program pursuing research questions and integrating results from bench-to-bedside and bedside-to-bench. The PTH will optimize the use of already approved drugs, identify new targets for therapy, develop novel therapies, test potential novel drugs in pre-clinical models, and collaborate with pharmaceutical companies on developing new drugs and test these and other novel drugs in Phase I-II clinical trials.